More Random Musings for No Reason

For those of you who think your local politicians are corrupt, I have but one word: pikers. Give it up now, folks, nothing beats a Chicago politician for plumbing the depths of just how low a so-called "public servant" can sink.

You see, last December, a piece of artwork - a statue, in fact - managed to "disappear" from the grounds of Chicago State University. The piece in question was an ebony sculpture of an African woman, and had been commissioned by CSU as part of gallery on the history of African-Americans in the U.S.

Well, since it isn't every day that pieces of public art just up and disappear, the Chicago Police Department was kind of interested in what had happened to it. Questioning the other statues on the grounds of CSU, however, didn't produce any useable leads, so . . .

The good news in this is that the statue eventually turned up in the Chicago offices of one of our State legislators. Why it turned up there, however, remains something of an unanswered question. It has something to do with the legislator in question claiming that the funds used to pay the sculptor were somehow misappropriated by CSU which, if the money had been granted to pay an artist for a piece of artwork, seems to be something of a non-starter. The only thing that is clear in this whole thing is that the legislator refuses to return the statue to Chicago State University, and it still occupies a back office in her suite.

But think about this for a moment. This woman had to get her staff together, hire a truck and a crane, and have them abscond with this statue in the middle of the night. That's right, folks, only in Chicago would a public servant steal a piece of public art purchased with public funds . . .

And, just to further embarrass the people and State of Illinois, the corrupt Governor we just tossed out of office is going to appear on Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. Can someone just not make Rod Blagoevich go away? Personally, I'm hoping that he and former Governor Ryan can share a cell.

And once again in the Only in Illinois category, we just got done with our Primaries not too long ago. In which, yes, we learned through a campaign commercial that one of our candidates for State Comptroller allegedly had personal ties to such luminaries as Sam Giancanna and Tony "the Big Tuna" Accardo. Before you know it, someone's going to drag Al Capone into it, too . . .

In a recent poll, it seems that while 53% of Illinois voters approve of what the President is doing, the other 47% want to run him up a tree and set fire to it . . . and those numbers are narrowing. Me, I'm still ambivalent in that there are some things the President is doing that I don't like, and some things that I do like. But when your own home State starts to turn on you, it might be time to rethink a few positions.

Lindsey Vonn finally got her Olympic gold medal. Good for her, she deserved it. Flimsy Chokabellis, however, might want to find out who she pissed off before her snowboard run . . .

Note to the figure skating judges: if you want people to stop talking about how corruptible the scoring system is, how about coming up with an open system that people can understand? Just asking.

Once again, to all the brain-dead morons out there: when you see a six-inch-curb with yellow lines painted on either side of it, chances are they don't want you to make a left-hand turn right there.

Peyton Manning crying in his beer; always good for the soul. But I still want to know who the '72 Dolphins paid off to maintain their record for a perfect season.

Did you know that I'm scared all the time? I didn't used to be, but I am now. I'm scared that the rest of my life is going to be just one long procession of visiting different doctors. I'm scared that I'll never marry or have children. There are some nights that I'm scared to go to bed, because of the fear that I might not wake up. Most of all, though, I'm scared that while people are telling me to exercise more because of the arterial blockages in my legs, someone else will amputate my legs because of those blockages . . .

Ah, well, no one listens anyway . . .